Today's synchronous memory devices are used in mobile applications such as personal digital assistants (PDA's) and cell phones for the higher performance they offer. Power consumption of these memory devices, however, is a big issue for battery-powered applications. As such, there is a demand for memory devices that have power saving features.
A synchronous non-volatile memory, such as a synchronous flash memory, is a non-volatile device that performs read operations like a synchronous DRAM device. In general, the synchronous flash memory device has a memory cell array that is arranged in rows and columns. A row is typically accessed and the contents of the data read. The read data can then be randomly read by changing a column address. The read operation consumes power when accessing and sensing the stored data. The row length (number of cells in a row) is a factor of power consumption. As such, the length of an accessed row (page) can be reduced by providing multiple pages per memory bank of a memory device. Excessive power is often consumed, however, by re-accessing a page of the memory was just accessed.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for a memory device that can reduce power consumption.